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Campaign
The campaign is the Player vs Computer aspect of the game and is also the main source of ships and credits. Therefore, it's very important to do the campaign. Stations are the "lives" of the campaign. When you lose, you also lose one station (they are refilled up to 7 with 3 platinum each and you gain 1 every hour; leaving 7 stations alone for some time, at least twelve hours, will give you the maximum of 8). Overview The campaign is composed of a section of battles and a boss. The map itself is a 6x6 area for a maximum of 36 missions. You must win 20 battles in order to unlock the boss, which once defeated, will award high amounts of platinum (premium currency) and will allow you to pass to the next level. There are infinite levels, each one much more difficult. Cwwallis himself tested level 30 and had to use every trick in the game to beat it. Each battle won will reward you with a ship, auxiliary, turret, tech or credits. The higher the level, the higher the chance for green/blue/red (with 1/2/3 upgrades, respectively) and tech. Credits awarded also increase with level. At level 10 you get a chance of obtaining the Ragnarok and the Apocalypse. And last but not least, you can reset the level, allowing you to choose a different level and randomizing new campaigns and bosses. Resetting will cost 1 station to stop people from finding a good unit just by resetting the first level. Difficulty Levels The difference between each difficulty level is the speed at which the AI gets resources for ships. This goes from slow and easy to medium, then faster than normal and finally gets insane (to the point of AI getting a capital in the first minute!). There are also other variations: At level 2, you face the Cloud and Alien factions. (Check the faction page for more information). At level 3 the AI will start with preplaced (and random) turrets depending on the faction. At level 5, the human AIs will spawn with a Phalanx turret or a Tactical Shield (depending on the faction). At level 6, the humans will start using Round techs, the round tech depends on the faction. At level 7, the human AIs will spawn with some internally shielded turrets, minimizing armor-only effects like freeze. Defense units do not ''have internal shields. At level 9, the AIs will use upgraded units (carriers spawning fighters other than Piranhas, significantly higher regen on Infester units). Green Legions spawn Rapiers. Yellow Mastodons spawn Hawks. At level 13, the AI gains another Tactical Shield or Phalanx, and every 10 levels after that they will gain 1 extra Tactical Shield or Phalanx. The maximum number of turrets every factions start with (preplaced) is nine, while the maximum number defense units used is four. Infest and Cloud factions do not have defensive units. Bosses Bosses are, arguably, the hardest fights in the whole game, while you start with 2000 energy, the AI gets capitals extremely fast (multiple in less than 1 minute). They require a lot of planning, pausing and maybe even resetting the campaign if you don't get a lot of asteroids for metal. Every time you would need much of the usual early defense and economy setup. All boss capitals come unshielded, so a good source of freeze effect goes a long way towards sustaining one's defenses. Spectres with Freeze Rounds alone can pretty much carry you through those levels. Hint: do not spawn early and "stop" a bunch of caps at the enemy base, then have the Spectres killed and stacked caps come at you all together. Rather, spawn late and freeze them at your defense line to buy enough time for your own goodies to come in numbers, all the while keeping said Spectres within your tac shield/phalanx range. Up to a certain point all bosses can be successfully tower-rushed provided they spawn close enough. Purple and Yellow are less prone to it because of them starting with multiple Phalanx towers from rather early levels. Most typical boss battles will end up in CapVsCap battles, so make sure you are up to the task. If you plan on hitting with Sapphire Bay Legion, bring Carrier Rack tech. If you rely on good old Goliath, squeeze in some beam doctrines (which will, incidentally, help a lot with Lasering down all the fighters around when the boss brings carriers, too). If your cap of preference is anything else, e.g. a projectile-shooting one, and the boss has Phalanx towers/ships, be ready to bring excessive force to overwhelm it by sheer numbers, and again, pack relevant upgrade technology. The basic strategy against '''red '''is to get ready to kill Tridents. That could be accomplished with your own caps, the black hole weapons on the Void Lance and/or Hades (both are outranged so you will need upgrades/set-up) or amounts of raw damage, such as from Plasmacasters (range is a problem again) and Spartans. Phalanx turrets are useful for stopping some of the barrage from the Tridents but since they shoot so much and so often, do not expect them to hold their own. A Gladiator Fighter Yard can be of huge help. The basic strategy against '''green' is to watch carefully for a very early Spartan which could really wreak havoc on your set-up. On low levels, he could be swarmed with fighters or carrier meds; later, a green Spartan's appearance, "some argue"©wikislang, means you suddenly lost. Luckily, green does not always go for Spartans and rarely if ever brings more than one. Legions are surprisingly easy to contain with Laser turrets, since they don't deal much damage without their fighters. You still want to be killing them somehow, because if they stack up, eventually the amount of fighters they spawn will overrun any lasers. But hopefully you will get your own caps by then. The basic strategy against yellow is to hope it is of the "non-cap-rush" variety, e.g. goes for you with masses of Grendels. Their Phalanx counters most towers though, so a beam-heavy setup will have the easiest time. (Keep in mind beam doctrine technology, and the fact that beams do not benefit from munition type techs). The infamous "mastodon rusher" variety's fighter distraction is again quite possible to clean out with Laser turrets, but you will need a very careful build in order to not fall too far behind. In both cases, a Goliath cap is your MVP in a yellow match. When to reset? A lot of the time, you will get stuck at bosses, but you should not always reset. Suggestions of when to reset: 1) Low asteroids near to your spawn position: This can render the boss impossible, especially vs Green Faction. 2) South Position: If you spawn in the south position, your ships will first need to do a whole turn in order to attack. This can mean defeat in case of capitals and their slow turn rate. 3) Yellow Faction: The yellow faction is infamous for its capital rushing ability. This, coupled with the insane boost of a boss, can make the fight impossible (cases of three Mastodon starports under 2 minutes are common with yellow bosses). 4) Green Faction: The carrier faction uses Odysseys, and Legions. Because they rush Legions, you will be overwhelmed if you're not ready to take down swarms of fighters, and with the high amount of resources a boss gets, 3 Legion starports are very common. In general, you should not try to fighter rush bosses or use mediums, since the number of capitals the AI uses is insane. Boss battles will most likely end in a capital battle, but they get the advantage of getting the first one out. Good luck.